THE REVIVAL OF BOTANY n 



wandt"), though such natural groups as he recognises 

 are neither named nor defined. 



These three German herbals really deserve to be 

 called scientific. To figure the plants of Germany from 

 the life, to exclude such as existed only in books, and 

 to strive after a natural grouping, was a first step 

 towards a fruitful knowledge of plant-life. It is worth 

 while to dwell for a moment upon the place where these 

 herbals were produced. Along the Rhine civilisation 

 and industry had for many years flourished together. 

 Here and in the country to the east of the great river 

 had sprung up that powerful union of seventy cities 

 known in the thirteenth century as the Confederation 

 of the Rhine ; four universities, three of them on the 

 banks of the Rhine, had been founded ; here printing 

 and wood-engraving had established themselves in 

 their infancy ; here, too, the Reformation found many 

 early supporters. There were historical, economic, and 

 moral reasons why the first printed books on natural 

 history, illustrated by wood-cuts drawn from the life, 

 should have been produced in the Rhineland, and why 

 all their authors should have been Protestants. Nearly 

 every sixteenth-century botanist held the same faith. 



The success of the first German herbalists brought a 

 crowd of botanists into the field, among whom were 

 several whose names are still remembered with honour. 

 Gesner of Zurich made elaborate studies for a great 

 history of plants, which he did not live to complete. 

 It was he who first pointed out that the flower and 

 fruit give the best indications of the natural relation- 

 ships of plants, and his many beautiful enlarged 

 drawings set an example which has done much for 

 scientific botany. Botanists began to understand what 

 natural grouping means, and to recognise that truly 



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